


(re)meeting

by kihadu



Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-14
Updated: 2015-03-14
Packaged: 2018-03-17 19:40:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,316
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3541553
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kihadu/pseuds/kihadu
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>‘So,’ says Varric, ‘what brings you boys to this neck of the woods?’<br/>Zevran is bent over his wine like it holds all the secrets to life. ‘Killing slavers.’<br/>Fenris chuckles, a rumble loud like a cat, and holds his hand up for a fist bump. </p><p>-</p><p>Featuring: Fenris meeting Dorian, Solas, the Iron Bull, Krem, and Cole. A reunion with Hawke. Zevran reuniting with Leliana. A brief mention of the rest of the Inquisition gang. Fenris-focused, no romance for anyone.</p>
            </blockquote>





	(re)meeting

‘You heard?’

Fenris gives Zevran a very bland look of vague interest. It’s warm in the tavern, and his feet are finally unfreezing. They’ve been a long while on the road, but Zevran’s got that gleam in his eye that suggests they’ll be in a fist fight within the hour and tossed out of the tavern shortly thereafter. Fenris would really rather they weren’t, for the bed at least.

Zevran doesn’t continue, so Fenris decides to play his game. ‘Heard what?’

‘Champion of Kirkwall’s fallen in with the Inquisition.’

‘Maker,’ Fenris sighs, setting his mug down on the bench. ‘Do we have to go and rescue her?’

‘Not like that.’ Zevran shrugs. ‘We’re in the area.’

In the area meant a two-week hike, counting by distance alone. Up and over those mountains might add another week to their trip, or more. They didn’t use horses as a rule.

‘We don’t have to,’ Fenris says. It’s been three years and counting since he’d seen Hawke. Kept in touch, sure, but he’d seen Merrill more recently than he’d seen Hawke.

‘You’d be doing me a favour, actually. I have a friend who is there. Spymaster, or some such. She used to be a bard of the Chantry.’

Bards were never merely bards; most were more like assassins, and Fenris had learned to be a little wary of anyone with a strong voice and a stringed instrument.

‘A friend, or a friend like your last one?’ The last one had been dabbling in slaving. They’d been invited to her mansion and been pleased to accept. They rarely said no to a offer of bed indoors, even if this woman had thought they required merely the one bed.

There was no issue of sharing, except that Zevran liked to sprawl out big and Fenris snored just loud enough to keep Zevran unsettled. They were used to sleeping together in the same bed, but usually they’d rather the choice. In any case, the last friend of Zevran’s they’d met, they’d left her mansion empty of anything except bodies.

‘You wound me, and insult my friend in the same breath,’ Zevran said. ‘She and I travelled with the Warden together.’

‘Ah, Leliana.’ Fenris has heard all of Zevran’s stories. They have been travelling together for years, now, and there is little of the other that they do not know. It has been a long time since Zevran has seen Leliana. ‘Find us a caravan to travel with. I don’t fancy walking up a mountain.’

 

-

 

Skyhold is larger than he expected. He was told a castle, but he’s been disappointed by what constitutes a castle before. This is not a castle. This is a fortress. Thick walls and steep slopes falling down either side into valleys hundreds of metres deep. He follows at the tail-end of the caravan, enjoying the way the ground below his toes turns from slushy ice-cold mud to firm, ice-cold grass.

They are met at the gate by a stern looking dwarf who directs the caravan to where the goods can be unloaded.

Zevran looks to Fenris. ‘Where shall we explore first?’

‘If she’s a spymaster she should know you’re here already,’ Fenris points out, though Zevran, because he is Zevran, had insisted that they not use their real names to travel. Still, two elves together, both of them so obviously tattooed and not from Ferelden, and any spymaster worth her weight in salt should gather rumours enough to track their progress.

So Fenris is not surprised, though Zevran is faintly offended at the insult to his own sneaking abilities, when someone dressed in uniform comes down the stairs and ushers them through a garden to a room designated as theirs. There is only one bed, which Zevran falls onto immediately.

‘I am going to wash my feet,’ Fenris says. ‘And then we will explore.’ Zevran’s answer is an incoherent mumble muffled by the pillow. Fenris takes it as a yes.

‘Serrah Leliana regrets that she is busy until evening.’ They have an attendant, it seems, and their attendant is set on keeping them out of particular areas. Zevran’s already snuck into one of the rooms apparently out of bounds: it was a wreck, a hole in the wall that opened out onto the valley. He wasn’t usually bothered by heights, but the sudden drop had done something to his head. He decided that perhaps the out-of-bounds rules could be obeyed, at least mostly.

‘Might I suggest the tavern?’ The attendant asks, when they have dragged him all over the fortress.

With a wide smile Zevran loops his arm through Fenris’. He thanks the attendant for his attentiveness, and drags Fenris away for a drink.

Fenris has been keeping his eye out for Hawke. The attendant, when asked, said that neither the Champion nor the Inquisitor were currently in residence, but that hadn’t stayed Fenris’ wandering eye. At the least he’d hoped for a sign, though what he did not know. The Amell crest, perhaps, or merely a flash of red.

The tavern is the same as all taverns. Fenris has learned to take comfort in the familiarity of them all: a bard here, a firepit over there, the bar stained with unmentionables and leaned on by some unsavoury character.

Except here the unsavoury character is familiar, and while Zevran starts humming to the song the bard is plucking out on her lyre Fenris takes a few tentative steps.

‘Varric?’ There aren’t many dwarves that look like him, but he is still careful in case he is wrong.

Varric glances over his shoulder once, like he doesn’t much care who it is, and then he fully twists on his barstool, an incredulous look on his face.

‘Broody? What the blazes are you doing?’ He’s up and looks like he wants to hug, so Fenris takes a step and folds him in. At Kirkwall - during Kirkwall, as much a place as an era in Fenris’ mind - he would never have allowed this sort of thing. But he hugs Varric and steps back, grinning.

‘You met Zevran, I think?’ Fenris gestures beside him. Zevran gives a little bow.

‘Zevran Arainai, at your service. Might I be right in guessing you to be Varric Tethras?’

‘You are indeed.’ They’ve met; that tattoo is familiar, and a beardless dwarf is rare to come by, but it’s been long enough that Zevran doesn’t feel awkward for the introduction. In any case, he’s not certain Varric heard him. He just standing, just staring at Fenris with bewilderment.

‘You’re here,’ he says.

‘I am.’ That dry voice breaks Varric out of his stupor.

‘Come, sit! What’ll you drink? Wine? Brandy? We have ice, even.’

‘You have mages,’ Fenris says. They’d been shown the mage tower. The Inquisitor’s idea, apparently.

‘We do, and they make ice for us.’

‘Brandy, then,’ Fenris says.

‘You’re eager for punishment,’ Zevran says, beckoning the barkeep over and discussing the possibility of hot wine.

‘You arrived only today?’ Varric asks.

‘This afternoon,’ says Fenris. ‘With the caravan.’ He tries the brandy. It’s alright, but needs the ice to be palatable. Zevran makes eager grabbing motions and takes his wine, inhaling the steam before taking a long draw.

‘So,’ says Varric, ‘what brings you boys to this neck of the woods?’

Zevran is bent over his wine like it holds all the secrets to life. ‘Killing slavers.’

Fenris chuckles, a rumble loud like a cat, and holds his hand up for a fist bump. Startled at that casual display of friendship, Varric stares intently at his drink.

‘Going well?’

‘Be easier without this blighted war,’ Zevran says. ‘Too many mages and too many templars. There’s a lot of chaos out there.’

Nodding, Varric agrees. ‘That’s where the Inquisitor is now. Fixing up some mess. Rumour is she’ll return in a day or two, but we’ve learned not to pay mind to those rumours.’

‘And Hawke?’ Fenris asks.

‘Oh, of course you didn’t come to see me.’

‘I did not know you were here,’ Fenris protests.

‘He thought he’d have to rescue Hawke out of the dungeon,’ says Zevran.

Varric chuckles, deep and long. This feels familiar, and he’s glad Fenris is here. ‘I don’t blame you. It did nearly come to that. Cassandra - that’s the Seeker - she wanted to put her in irons.’

‘You wrote me of her,’ Fenris says.

‘Ah, I did. Doing better with your letters now?’ he teases. Fenris just rolls with it, like he always did, but the rolling seems to come easier to him now than it did before. There’s less of a prickle to the sardonic little smile.

‘I’d do better if writing was all the same. Have you gotten anything from Isabela? Atrocious hand.’

‘She doing well?’

Fenris sighs, leaning back a little in his seat to crack his back. ‘More money than any of the rest of us put together,’ he says, which is a yes, Isabela is doing very well. ‘Merrill’s with her.’

‘I though maybe you’d go.’

‘With Isabela?’ Fenris shakes his head. ‘Nah,’ he says easily.

‘But you and her…’

‘We’re friends,’ says Fenris. ‘Same as sparring, but less useful in a fight.’

‘You’ve changed.’ Varric doesn’t think before saying it. Fenris nods. It’s true, and he doesn’t mind that he has. Five years on from the Kirkwall Rebellion, he’d be disappointed if there weren’t changes more complex than the fall of his hair.

‘How is she? Hawke.’

Varric isn’t sure how to answer that question. ‘How are any of us?’ Anders had been a friend, trusted, part of their gang for years on end. The shattered pieces of the world left behind by his actions were so many that the blame was easily shared, but not easily shouldered. It weighs too much, still.

Zevran raps his knuckles on the table, breaking Varric out of his slip into melancholy. ‘I am going to see if Leliana is busy. Perhaps we will talk later,’ he adds, nodding at Varric. He flicks Fenris on the shoulder in farewell, and Varric is surprised that Fenris does nothing except shake his head with a wry little grin on his face.

‘You’re looking good,’ Varric says.

Fenris smiles, all teeth showing, cheek bulging out with the ice of his drink. ‘Can’t hold onto ghosts forever,’ he says. He chews the ice, a loud crunch that Varric nearly flinches at. ‘I’m told it’s unhealthy.’

‘Hawke tell you that?’ Varric’s not certain what went down right before they all fucked off out of Kirkwall, stones falling down around. Hawke a mage, and too close to Anders by far, and what with Sebastian threatening to a war they needed to get out of dodge faster than any horse could take them. He knew that Hawke and Fenris had words, a lot of them. Some of them angry and some of them not, but that was the same with them all. Emotions were high. Everything was a mess.

Fenris considers the question. ‘No.’

‘Zevran?’

‘I think I learned this one on my own.’

‘Well, that’s… good,’ says Varric. He feels a little lost. Seeing Fenris again, he’d hoped that maybe this would be like the old days. Fenris brooding, that bit of red around his wrist like no one else knew what it meant. ‘Hawke isn’t here, but she should be tomorrow, I think.’

‘Yeah?’ he asks. Varric’d say he perks up at the mention of Hawke, except that he already seems pretty damn perky for an ex-slave lyrium-branded elf in a world where mages are aggressively present. ‘Tomorrow, then.’

‘You have someplace you need to be?’

‘Nothing on the agenda,’ Fenris says.

‘Then I don’t need to worry you’ll disappear soon as you meet up with Hawke. In that case, I’ll leave you to it. I’ve things to do, but I’ll talk to you later. Perhaps at dinner.’

Fenris nods. He finishes his drink and considers ordering another. The novelty of having ice on hand is enough to make him go so far as to take out the coins, except there is a rowdy yell from the other side of the tavern. The hour is early for such raucous behaviour, and Fenris has spent enough time in taverns already, he thinks. He pockets the coins and decides to do a proper exploration. The attendant did little more than gesture out doors.

 

 

He ends up finding Varric again, walking into the hall and seeing him busy in discussion with a woman in Orlesian dress. He nods, and keeps on going. A library, the attendant told him, also telling him that the doors on the left of the hall were probably best left alone. As a guest he believes in obedience far more than Zevran does, so he goes through one of the doors on the right and finds himself in a large circular room where there is an elf crouched down next to the wall with a paintbrush in hand.

His immediate thought is that the man is a slave. He takes a step forward.

‘No, Sera, I will not lend you any paint.’ The man twists in place, balancing easily on his toes. Bare, like Fenris’. ‘Who are you?’

‘Fenris.’

‘One of Varric’s friends.’

Fenris will never get used to this. Damn Varric’s books, and damn his own self for being so easily described and so easily recognised. ‘Yes.’

The man stands in one fluid movement. ‘I am Solas, one of the Inquisitor’s companions. An Agent of the Inquisition, I suppose I should say, though in truth I do little more than follow the Inquisitor about.’

‘And the rest of the time you are painting?’ He doesn’t look much like an artist. Fenris can’t pin him. He doesn’t look like anything much at all. A scholar, perhaps, except that he looks like a warrior, but if Fenris is to pick that as his pin he doesn’t think it will stick. An oddity, then, and he has seen enough of those to be only mildly curious.

‘I paint what things have come to pass. A recording of memory.’

‘Wouldn’t it be better to write it down?’ Solas gestures at the table in the middle of the room, stacked neatly with short piles of paper. Apparently not ever a slave, or, perhaps, one of the rare few who can write.

‘Are you looking for me specifically, or are you merely wandering?’

‘Merely wandering.’

The elf steps a little closer. ‘Those are -’

Fenris steps back. ‘Lyrium.’

‘I can feel it.’ Solas frowns with concern. ‘They must be killing you, to be enough lyrium that I can feel from all the way over here.’

Discomforted as he always is with attention on his scars, Fenris gestures at the door to the side. ‘Does that lead to the library?’

‘Who did this to you?’

Obviously Fenris is going to have to have this conversation every time he meets someone new. ‘I was a slave.’

‘Do they hurt?’

Fenris actually has no idea anymore. They used to, he is certain, but either they have stopped or he has become so used to it that it no longer matters. He settles for a short nod.

‘That door leads to the library,’ Solas says, and Fenris escapes.

The stairs go up, winding around. Fenris knows there is some rule about this, something about invading armies and how the swordsman in the top coming down have an advantage over those trying to make their way up. If attacked in such a small space he’d have no room to swing his sword. It would be better to phase through them.

The library is peaceful. A soft whisper of pen on paper, pages turning, and floating down from above he can hear voices, gentle out of respect for those busy reading.

If there is a book neatly written and interesting enough, perhaps he will remain here until dinner. It seems cosy enough, and there are precious few books to read when travelling.

‘What is that smell? Solas, are you doing some kind of -’ The man strides out of his alcove but stops short to see Fenris. ‘You. You smell like lyrium.’ The man wrinkles his nose. ‘Do you bathe in the stuff?’

‘Only once, and not by choice,’ says Fenris. He’s so tired of this train of conversation, and so angry that he has to revisit it time and time again.

‘Wait. A slave.’

‘Not a slave.’

‘You were a slave.’

‘Once,’ Fenris agrees. His voice is too loud for the library. He wants for Zevran, he wants for Hawke, and he wants to be gone.

‘Danarius,’ says the man. His accents fits with his knowing who Danarius was, and that he can smell Fenris by the lyrium means he’s a mage. Fenris grits his teeth while the man continues. ‘There were stories. I thought they were rumours. I thought you died.’

‘There were others before me, and after,’ Fenris says. He was the only one who lived. So much lyrium wasted. He has nothing else to say to this man, and turns around without taking his leave.

 

-

 

Leliana bends her head close to Josephine’s, not quite smiling even though Josephine is biting her lip to keep from breaking into a nervous grin, her cheeks blushed red. Zevran lurks in the doorway to watch. Partly he’s curious to see if Leliana is so good at her job that she’ll know he’s there without his announcing himself. But she’s engrossed in Josephine, and Josephine in her, so he takes a step back and knocks on the wood as if he has only just arrived.

‘I do hope I’m not interrupting.’

‘No, um. Not particularly,’ Josephine says. She cannot quite meet anyone’s eye. ‘I have to take this report to Cullen. If you like you can talk here.’

There was no introduction, so Zevran presumes that Josephine already knows who he is, just like he already knows who she is. ‘Making friends?’ he asks, sliding into one of the cushioned seats.

‘Oh, come off it,’ she retorts, sitting opposite.

‘The only surprise is that no one has managed to snatch your attention before now. I think you’ve come into your prime.’ She raises an eyebrow at him. ‘Truly. I’ve seen some of the others, and the past decade hasn’t treated them nearly as well as it has you.’ Morrigan doesn’t count, because he suspects Morrigan is at least part god.

‘Flatterer,’ she scolds, but she seems pleased all the same. ‘Did you truly come here only to talk? I can hardly believe you would make the trip for nothing more than an old friendship.’

‘If I had only need of your skills I would have sent a letter. This,’ he spreads out his arms, ‘is purely personal.’

‘In that case, let me find one of the staff and have tea sent for us.’

‘You wouldn’t ask for tea if this was business?’

She looks shocked, pretty face comically aghast. ‘One does not plan murder over tea and biscuits.’

‘My mistake,’ he grins. They call for tea, and while they wait they make smalltalk about the decor, though Leliana knows only a little. After all, it isn’t her room they are in.

‘I haven’t heard from you since,’ Leliana tries to hazard a guess. ‘Thirty-six, I think.’ Obviously she’d kept up with his life, but hearing about a friend though gossips and spies was one thing, and it was another to hand him a cup and saucer and watch him stir in the sugar with trained delicacy.

‘And I have not heard from you since thirty-seven,’ he retorts. The response to his own letter, in fact, short and to the point, and hoping that he was well despite the chaos that had exploded. He’d been Antiva, not the city, and had only heard echos of it. On the arrival of Leliana’s letter he’d rather hoped it would be a proper report, but it wasn’t. Merely a short few sentences with that tacked onto the end.

‘That’s four years to catch up on,’ she says. With a theatrical holding of the cuff of her shirt she leans forward and picks the lid of the teapot up. ‘I think we have enough tea to do us two years.’

‘I am here for a little while,’ Zevran says. ‘No hurry to be away.’

Leliana considers where to start telling her past few years. ‘Have you heard tell of my involvement with that whole… affair with Lord Seeker van Reeves?’

‘The cured tranquil,’ Zevran says. ‘I know only that it happened, not the specifics. I had no idea you were even there.’

She smiles over the rim of her teacup. ‘You call yourself a spy.’

‘I call myself an assassin,’ he corrects her sternly. ‘I have no need of information beyond what pertains to my particular assignment.’

‘It’s not assassination if you only get paid by looting the body,’ Leliana says.

‘Why not?’ asks Zevran. ‘Our dear friend the Warden funded an entire Blight that way.’

Leliana laughs, then settles back in her seat. They are good friends these two; similar but different, faithful and faithless, but they can sit like this drinking tea and eating cake while telling tales of murder, and they are comfortable together as though they have never been apart.

 

-

 

Fenris finds himself in the Great Hall again. He walked the battlements, found the stables, became an accidental part to a ballgame played by a group of soldiers, and now, finally, he is in the Great Hall and it seems it is dinner time. Varric is packing up his books and waving him over.

‘Broody! Enjoy your afternoon?’ Fenris’ hair is a little windswept from the impromptu game of ball. The rules here in the south are different to those he learned for the last game he played, far up in the north of the world.

‘Well enough,’ Fenris strides over. He still has a kind of stalking step to his walk, like he’s a cat just discovered his prey. Zevran teases him for it as often as he thinks he’ll get away with the remarks. ‘You’re keeping busy.’

‘Nothing exciting,’ Varric says with a frown. ‘Just reports for the Inquisition.’

‘Not another book?’

Varric’s face falls. ‘The words don’t come easy.’ The rest of it is all implied: the words don’t come easy here. The words don’t come easy since Anders. The words don’t come easy outside of Kirkwall.

‘Have you been back?’

‘Aveline’s still there, you know,’ Varric says. ‘Leading the Militia.’ His face cannot fall any further without breaking. ‘Sebastian.’ They go silent, thinking of what Kirkwall is suffering through. Another war; another revolution. And the fault of one man.

‘Might have been easier to kill him,’ Fenris says. It’s something he’s often thought but never said, and it’s obvious Varric has thought the same.

‘Not for her.’

Hawke. ‘No,’ Fenris agrees. Not for any of them, really.

‘Not that she knows where he is.’ Surprised, Fenris checks in case Varric is lying. The man lies so often, but surely not to him. Surely not about this, not about Anders.

‘Cold and fire and a letter unexpected, snow falling onto the paper but the words don’t make any sense, why would he -’

‘Cole,’ Varric says gently. ‘You’re doing it again.’ Fenris whirls, heart racing, but sees that it’s only a young boy in an enormous hat. ‘I got a letter,’ Varric says to Fenris. ‘Not too long ago. He’s alive, but not doing well.’ He sneers a little. ‘Not sure I can say I’m all that cut up about that.’

‘No,’ Fenris agrees.

Kirkwall was not the first sanctuary that he ever had, but it had been his home. He’d learned how to become himself there, faced his demons and come out alive.

‘Still,’ Fenris adds, wavering at the end of that word.

Varric sighs. ‘Yeah. Still. Come on, let’s eat. I’ll introduce you to this piece of interesting.’

‘I’m Cole.’

‘I’m Fenris.’

Cole beams at Varric. ‘See? Introduced.’

‘You’re doing well,’ Varric says. They sit down, Cole selecting a seat very carefully and very much out of reach of Fenris. Fenris doesn’t question it, only digs into the food already laid out.

The others come to join them before he has managed to find the butter amongst everything. Zevran sits beside him, thighs touching, and smiles. His breath smells like tea.

‘A good afternoon?’

‘It’s been too long,’ Zevran says. ‘We only reached as far as thirty-nine. So much has happened.’ He steals a potato from Fenris’ plate before beginning to fill his own.

Solas slides in at the opposite end of the table to Cole, and then Dorian comes and sits beside Varric. He eyes Fenris warily, but Fenris is busy eating and doesn’t notice.

‘Have you met everyone?’

‘I haven’t,’ Zevran says. He gestures at the table. ‘Please, go on.’

‘I’m Cole,’ says Cole. Again, he beams at Varric, who smiles indulgently back at him.

‘I am Solas. You are Fenris’ companion?’

‘We travel together,’ Zevran agrees, dialling it back a little as though his shoulder is not bumping Fenris’ and Fenris did not accidentally pick up his cup.

‘You are the same,’ says Cole. ‘The same,’ he wavers. ‘Not soul, soul is wrong. Heart is incorrect, because you cannot share a heart. You would not be alive.’ He peers at them before pulling his face back under his hat. ‘You hurt,’ he says. He darts a look at Fenris. ‘I can,’ he pauses, glances around the table in a strange, underhand kind of way, not really looking anyone’s face, ‘if you like, if you want me to,’ he stresses that very carefully, ‘I can make you stop hurting.’

Fenris leans back, even though Cole cannot reach him. ‘What are you?’ His voice is louder than he likes, the largeness of the hall swallowing it up.

‘Cole is a spirit,’ says Varric. The way he’s all bristled up tells Fenris everything he needs to know: that Cole is a friend, to be trusted, and that Varric will protect him against even Fenris. Remembering how Justice reacted to his lyrium is enough to make him glad for the width of the table between himself and the spirit. Trusting Varric, he carefully resettles himself in his seat.

‘I can take away your pain,’ Cole insists.

Fenris doesn’t know how to respond. He’s not had much reason to learn how to converse with spirits. ‘How would you do that?’

‘I just do,’ says Cole. ‘I want it gone and it goes.’

‘I need this pain,’ Fenris says. He doesn’t know which pain, exactly, Cole is meaning, but if Fenris could pull them all out of his chest they’d be a tangled mess of twine, each string indeterminable from the other.

‘I don’t mean your memories. Just the hurt.’

Fenris darts a look at Varric, but Varric seems only wary, not surprised. ‘It makes me who I am.’

‘But it hurts you,’ Cole insists.

‘I need it,’ Fenris repeats. ‘It helps me remember. If I didn’t remember, even if it was just pictures,’ Maker, but he’s not good at this kind of thing. ‘If it didn’t hurt me I’d forget why I do what I do. It makes me angry.’ He doesn’t know if that explains anything at all, but Cole is nodding very slowly, back brim of his hat flopping with the movement.

‘If you don’t hurt, you’d forget why it’s important.’ Cole chances a look, pale grey eyes reminding Fenris precisely of that feeling of reaching into the Fade. He cannot meet them for more than a blink of his eyes. He suppresses a shudder. ‘And what you do, it’s important.’

Fenris swallows. ‘It is.’

‘What is it that you do, exactly?’ Dorian asks, leaning forward.

Still shaking off that feeling of being peered into, Fenris lets Zevran answer this one. Zevran grins, looks Dorian right in the eye. ‘We kill slavers.’

‘I see,’ Dorian says slowly. He doesn’t look entirely pleased with the revelation. ‘Well, I’m not one, I’ll have you know. Tevinter mage, yes, slaver, no.’

Having managed to gather himself back together Fenris says, ‘I’ve had enough experience with Tevinter mages not to take their word for it.’

‘No longer of Tevinter, I’ll have you know.’

‘Ran away in outrage at the atrocities?’ Fenris asks. His voice is low-pitched and threatening.

‘What did you say your name was, again?’ Zevran asks. There had been no proper introduction offered him, though Fenris is certain the question is meant more to irritate Dorian than to truly get an answer. A few hours with Leliana and likely he knows everything there is to know about the residents of Skyhold.

‘Dorian, formally of House Pavus.’ He does not look away from Fenris as he says it.

The name was on their list, back when they first started a list, but it’s since been scratched off. ‘You’re probably safe. We can’t kill everyone that ever owned a slave,’ Zevran says. Strictly their business is in the killing of the slavers. It’s a shorter list, for one.

‘Sadly,’ Fenris growls.

Dorian is frowning as though he were born to it. ‘I never owned a slave. I lived at home, went to my apprenticeship, and ran away before I could come into any money of my own. Though I did own some land, and the land did come with property,’ he muses. ‘That’s not mine any longer,’ he adds hurriedly. ‘I suspect I’ve been branded as dead.’ He makes a small face at that, all inward, a frown at his own circumstances.

‘People are not property,’ snaps Fenris. ‘You’ll do better to remember that.’

‘Better then to leave them starving on the streets?’ asks Dorian, lightly curious, as though they’re talking of nothing more important than their dinner.

‘Are they the only two options?’ Zevran cuts in, Fenris’ face all pulled back into a snarl and his fingers clawed in the familiar way where he is ready to reach for the Fade. ‘Starving or slavery? Better for the system to be changed entirely.’

‘And in the meantime -’

Fenris stands and reaches over the table, grabs Dorian by the front of his shirt and hoists him upright. ‘In the meantime you would own people? Take away their rights, take away their ability to say yes or no?’

‘People can choose not to be slaves.’

Fenris tosses him away, angered into being unable to argue.

‘Choosing between starvation and selling yourself isn’t a choice at all,’ says Zevran.

Still on his arse where he fell, Dorian glares up at them. ‘We’re not all blood mages, you know. The slaves in my house were treated very well.’

‘So I should forget what was done to me because it was the exception?’ Fenris spits it out. ‘One is too many.’

‘This isn’t an argument you’re going to win,’ Varric interrupts, voice soft after the yelling.

‘And Fenris isn’t the only one,’ says Zevran.

‘Slavery is never acceptable,’ Solas breaks in. ‘Freedom should be given to all. If the alternative is starvation, then it is more than slavery that is the problem in Tevinter.’

Varric watches as Dorian gets to his feet. ‘You’re wrong, and you know it, you just don’t want to face up to it.’

‘I think it’s better I take my leave now,’ Dorian says. ‘Good night.’ With a tense little bow he turns and leaves. Varric sighs heavily.

‘Don’t hold it against him. He’s had a rough few months.’

‘Don’t apologise for him. Merely having your own struggles is no reason to ignore anyone else’s,’ Fenris snaps.

‘Everyone has to start learning from somewhere. You never had any concern for elves, or mages -’

‘Because where I come from, mages have the power. And elves tend to end up slaves.’

‘Still,’ Varric attempts again.

‘This isn’t a grey area!’ Fenris cries.

‘I’m not saying it is,’ Varric attempts.

‘He might be your friend, but he’s still a ‘Vint,’ Fenris bites out. Varric says nothing, and they all turn their focus onto their own plates, until the Iron Bull strolls into the hallway.

The booming voice carries across the hall and Fenris is startled up and out of his seat from the familiarity. ‘Bull?’

The Iron Bull looks across and grins, face splitting wide and a scrape on his cheek bleeding anew. ‘Why, if it isn’t the little elf!’ Varric’s got it on the tip of his tongue to yell a warning, but the Bull just grabs Fenris and swings him around in a bone-crushing embrace. ‘I didn’t think to see you again! Thought you’d died!’

Fenris scoffs. ‘I’ve fought Tal-Vashoth before, you know.’

‘Chief?’ asks the man standing beside the Bull. He looks more than a little uncertain.

‘Krem! This is that elf we helped out, years ago. Band of Tal-Vashoth terrorising a town up north of the Free Marches.’ Krem continues to look blank. ‘I forget, maybe you didn’t meet.’

‘We didn’t,’ Fenris says. ‘You didn’t meet my companion. Zevran,’ obedient to his name Zevran stands and offers a short bow. ‘This is the Iron Bull. Remember that awful cave with the dungeons?’

‘When you broke your arm? Oh, I remember. Pleasure to meet you both, if you’re the ones who got us out of there.’

‘Your arm was broken?’ the Bull asks, incredulous.

‘In three places,’ Zevran frowns at Fenris, the sort of exasperated frown between two easy friends.

‘And you still swung that sword around like it weighed nothing. You should go against Krem. He could stand to learn a few new tricks.’

‘Oi!’ Krem cries, but the Bull only chuckles and shoves aside space for himself and his lieutenant at the table.

‘Krem, Fenris. Feel free to whine about Tevinter, if you must, just do it when I’ve got some food in me.’ He pulls one of the dishes towards himself and starts eating straight from it, using his fingers. A moment of this and he shoots a guilty look around. ‘Vivienne isn’t here, is she?’

‘Gone with the Inquisitor. Another mage,’ Varric adds, to Fenris’ questioning look.

‘That’s… a lot of mages,’ Fenris attempts.

‘I suppose so,’ the Bull says. ‘You still all weird about them?’

‘I was brutally tortured for the sake of magic. I don’t think I’ll ever be over it,’ Fenris says, but his voice is light, as if the discussion with Dorian happened weeks ago rather than mere minutes.

‘The Inquisitor’s a mage, too,’ says Krem. ‘I’m not a fan of them, generally, but they’re doing good work here.’

‘Is this everyone?’ Zevran asks.

‘Not quite. You’ve not been down to the stables?’ Both Fenris and Zevran make a face that Varric laughs outrageously at. They are not fans of horses. ‘I’ll take that as a no,’ he continues, still chuckling a little in the corners of his words. ‘You’ll find Blackwall there. Sera’s an elf. Doesn’t like elves.’

‘We’re hardly elves,’ Zevran says.

‘You would not count yourselves as being of the People?’ Solas asks.

‘I don’t dance in the woods nearly enough to think of myself as a true elf,’ says Zevran. ‘Most elvish we’ve got is Fenris’ name.’ Everyone looks fairly blank. ‘Fen’Harel. But Dalish elves are afraid of that name, hm? We’ve had some problems on that account, in fact.’

‘Were you named for Fen’Harel?’ Solas asks.

‘I was named by my master,’ Fenris says. ‘We should talk of something else,’ he adds, irritated.

‘Yes, what about me?’ Zevran asks. ‘Fenris was just a slave, nothing at all very interesting there.’

‘What are you?’ Cole asks.

‘I,’ Zevran says, very grandly, ‘am an assassin.’

 

 

Fenris closes the door onto their room with relief. The noise of the outside is shut away by the wood and there is nothing but the sanctuary offered by Zevran’s presence.

‘If I’d known I would not have asked you here,’ Zevran says as he begins to undress.

‘I wanted to come. Hawke is here.’

‘Everyone asking you questions, though,’ Zevran says. Their undressing has brought them to the same side of the room, and Zevran takes the opportunity to drop a kiss onto Fenris’ bare shoulder in apology.

‘I’m fine,’ Fenris says, but he sags. ‘I’m tired of it.’

‘Cole says it hurts.’

‘Even if he could take away my memories I would not have it,’ Fenris says. ‘I’d rather a completely different life, but then I wouldn’t be me.’ He looks at the bed. ‘I’m glad they only gave us one. I’d rather not be alone tonight.’

 

-

 

‘I want to apologise.’

‘Do you want me to leave?’ Zevran asks, looking between Dorian and Fenris. Fenris puts his hand on Zevran’s to keep him there in the wooden garden seat beside him.

‘Your words have more truth than mine,’ Dorian says. ‘Truth is,’ the words seem to strangle him. ‘Truth is,’ he attempts again, ‘my homeland was not kind to me, but I never questioned it.’

‘You should,’ Fenris says.

‘Yes,’ Dorian agrees. ‘The trouble is, well, it doesn’t come easily to me. This being wrong. So I get all stubborn about it. Doesn’t really help much, I suppose, but there it is. One of my faults. One of very few,’ he adds, half a joke, eyes not quite able to meet Fenris’.

‘I never considered it, see, too caught up in my own problems. I am -’ Dorian stumbles, privately cursing that there is no simple word for this. ‘I prefer the company of men. That is not favoured amongst mages, not when we are meant to be,’ he sneers, ‘bred to better the blood. So I never looked past my own nose.’

Fenris thinks he sounds like someone’s had a talking to him. Varric, perhaps, though that elf, the mage, he’d seemed rather against anyone thinking slavery was acceptable.

‘Please say something,’ he says, half-pleading, this, a nearly-magister of the actual Imperium, pleading for Fenris’ attention.

Fenris is not sure if he deserves it, but he gives it anyway.

‘I cannot offer you an apology.’ Feeling upset about something is not the same as properly caring. Guilt is a great motivator, but it’s hardly real. Not tangible, not measurable. Fenris will not acknowledge it as something that matters.

‘I’ll stay out of your way while you’re here,’ Dorian promises. Yet he lingers still; somehow he believes there is more to be discussed between them. ‘I don’t have much power in Tevinter. My name is destroyed, but if you find yourself in a position where the disgraced son of House Pavus may do more good than harm, I offer my name, and more, as you might have need. When this is all done -’ he sweeps his hand about. They are in the garden, though, and the gesture is rather lost when he’s indicating at flowers rather than demons. ‘I would like to change my country.’ He steels himself, and meets Fenris’ eyes. ‘I would like to thank you for giving me reason to challenge what I know.’ And then he bows, and then he leaves.

Fenris is left holding Zevran’s hand not sure all of that happened.

‘There was no demon here, was there?’

‘Only a mage,’ Zevran promises.

A mage who offered his assistance to Fenris. No, a mage who acknowledged that his assistance was nothing to be wanted, and offered anyway.

Fenris goes to the yard after that, needing the practice, needing to clear his mind. He takes his sword with him, limbers up and checks that there’s space to swing before he begins his drills. He’s halfway through when he’s interrupted by a long, low whistle.

‘Thought the Chief was exaggerating,’ says Krem, sauntering over. ‘Mind if we drill together?’

‘Only if there’s sticks,’ Fenris says. He doesn’t fancy chopping the Bull’s lieutenant in half. Krem fetches them, and Fenris takes the opportunity to pull off his shirt. It’s a warm day. Perhaps he’d do better to train in full armour, except he does that an awful lot and doesn’t care to practice carrying the weight. Not today.

Krem blinks a moment at him, and Fenris is about to ask if he’d rather his shirt were back on. The moment is over before he can open his mouth, Krem tossing him a stick.

‘Let me warm up,’ Krem says, so they drill first, sticks rattling together as they step forwards and backwards, feeling each other out, learning the space they have to fight in.

‘I have to warn you, I’m used to fighting with a maul.’

‘It shows,’ Fenris says. He’d fought with one several times, each time only briefly but he hated it enough that he can remember it easily. ‘Can I give you advice?’

‘If you like,’ Krem answers between breaths.

‘Keep your feet a little wider apart.’ He demonstrates, practically showing a lunge where he can rock onto his forward foot to strike a blow, quickly rolling all his weight backwards to dodge the return assault. ‘Looser through the shoulders and the hips.’

‘Ready for a proper fight?’ Fenris asks. He’s been warmed up for a while now, and with the sheen of sweat that has Krem repeatedly pushing his fringe off his forehead Fenris reckons he’s ready, too.

‘Let’s have at it.’

They go three rounds that bleeds into four, so that Krem has a chance to win a second. Fenris doesn’t give it easily, but a fight is part skill part luck, and Fenris slips on a bit of trampled down dirt and Krem takes the opportunity.

‘You’re good,’ Fenris says.

‘You’re better.’ Fenris shrugs, because Krem is right. ‘If you’re here for longer I’d like to go again. Pick your brain.’

‘Be glad to,’ Fenris says. Zevran doesn’t give much of a proper fight. To be fair, Zevran doesn’t really get one back. Daggers against a broadsword are a difficult combination, so their training together is an attempt to learn how to fight alongside each other, and doesn’t really give them much room to practice striking an opponent.

‘I would like to ask a question, if that’s alright.’ Fearing more prying about his time in Tevinter, Fenris gives a wary nod. Krem looks hesitant, but asks it anyway. ‘The scars on your chest. They’re not from battle, are they?’

Usually Fenris forgets they are even there, and, lost amongst the lyrium, most other people don’t notice them. He’s surprised that Krem, in amongst all their dodging about, had time to see the scars. They’re faded a little with age but still ragged, messy incisions for all that they were surgical.

He meets Krem’s eyes boldly, in case this is going to be a cause for contention. ‘They’re not.’

‘Your history with magic… I have to say I’m surprised.’

‘A dwarf did this,’ Fenris says. ‘A surgeon.’ They had to have actual medicine to fix their sick, though Fenris rather suspects that he’d have succumbed to infection without meeting a mage later on who was willing to provide healing in thanks for her rescue from her impending slave-hood.

‘Do they bother you, when you fight?’

‘Not much. When they were healing, they did.’

‘I never thought there would be an option not magic,’ Krem says thoughtfully, and it’s only then that it clicks for Fenris.

‘I can give you the surgeon’s name, if you want.’

‘No.’ Krem blinks. ‘Maybe. I don’t think I could take the time off from the Company. Chargers need me, you see. And what I’ve got, it’s fine. Anyway, look, about Dorian-’

‘He apologised,’ Fenris says.

Krem looks startled at that. ‘Really? I’d have bet five coppers he’d never talk to you again. Glad he can eat his pride sometimes. I was going to say, he’s not really all that bad, just hasn’t thought about a lot of things. He’s had his own issues with the old country.’

‘Is there anyone who hasn’t?’ Fenris returns.

‘Magisters, probably,’ Krem grins. ‘Put on a shirt and I’ll buy you a drink. It was a good sparring, and I owe you.’

 

 

They’re halfway through a game of Wicked Grace, Zevran knocking their boots together under the table and smirking across the top of it, when there’s a loud cry from outside.

Distracted by his own cheating Zevran takes a moment to look up. ‘What’s the matter? Someone being murdered?’

‘The Inquisitor has returned,’ Krem says. ‘They always make that awful racket when she gets back.’

‘Hawke,’ Fenris says, and leaves his cards face-up on the table to go outside.

Zevran sighs. ‘Pay him no mind. He’s always like that about anyone from Kirkwall. Let’s finish this hand.’

‘No,’ Krem sniffs. ‘You’re cheating, and I know it.’

‘I’m in,’ Stitches says. ‘I want to know how you’re doing it.’

 

 

‘Fenris?’ Hawke is confused, and tangles her foot in the stirrup of her not-a-horse so that she has to hop a moment before she’s properly dismounted. ‘What in Maker’s name are you doing here?’

‘Was in the area,’ Fenris says, and has no opportunity to say more when she drags him into a hug. ‘Look at you,’ she says, when she pulls back, hands still on his arms. ‘You reek! Been rolling in muck?’

‘I was training, before.’

‘You should wash before welcoming old friends,’ she chides. ‘You look well.’

‘You -’ his voice fails him. She doesn’t look well. She looks tired.

‘Don’t bother,’ she says. ‘I’ve seen a mirror recently, and you’re always awful at lying.’

‘I don’t lie.’

‘Precisely,’ she returns. ‘Wanna come up and talk while I bathe, or are you gone a prude?’ He scoffs at her. ‘Just like old times, then,’ she grins, and loops her arm through his.

 

 

‘You know, you might stay,’ Hawke says. It’s later, and she is mostly dressed, and Zevran is on the chair in her room while Hawke and Fenris lounge at opposite ends of the bed. It’s a four-poster, so as to better keep out the chill of the mountain freeze. ‘We’re doing good work, and killing slavers is part of that.’

‘If we’re going to get paid, I might take note,’ Zevran says. ‘But I think it is better being free men able to do what we like, when we like, hm?’

‘You aren’t going to stay here for much longer,’ Fenris says with certainty. He’s got a towel over his shoulders; Hawke insisted he wash, though he wasn’t allowed to until she had, meaning he’d had the cold, already dirty water and she’d had the fresh hot stuff. His hair has gone all fluffy from the soap.

Just like old times indeed.

‘No,’ she agrees. ‘We had a good thing,’ she adds, softly. Fenris nods.

He doesn’t talk of Anders, not even when people ask. He’d rather talk about Danarius than Kirkwall.

‘Look, we’re back from a trip and usually the habit is kicking it down in the tavern. You two in, or out?’ she asks.

Zevran looks at Fenris, who shrugs. ‘In, then.’

‘Toss me my coat,’ she commands Zevran, who’s sitting on it. ‘You’ll get to meet the women of the Inquisition.’

 

 

The Inquisitor is a qunari who looks more like a rock than a woman, and then there is Sera who is loud and uncouth, and Cassandra with her scars and scowl that softens whenever the Inquisitor turns to her. Vivienne, it seems, is on her way, refusing to bother with the tavern in her usual dress but taking time over changing into something else. Leliana has decided to join them, her being friends with Cassandra and Zevran.

Zevran cannot get enough of her, and they whisper together and laugh so much that it leaves everyone else feeling certain that they are the ones getting discussed. It’s almost as though they have their own private language, their own wreath of history to hang up behind them and refer to. Fenris wonders if this is how he and Hawke are. He knows it’s how Hawke and Varric are. Less separate people and more a mess of the same soul.

Eventually they have to shove a whole group of tables together, as the men apparently have no desire to be left out of the party. Dorian appears a little after the rest, hesitating at the edge but Fenris gives him a curt nod so he sits beside the Bull and doesn’t say much unless it’s not directly to Fenris. Fenris is too distracted to wonder if he’s glad or insulted.

Conversation wavers over what the Inquisitor got up to on her latest venture outside the walls; what Leliana might be enticed into sharing; what adventures Zevran is eager to tell.

‘You’ve been travelling together for a long time?’ Cassandra asks.

‘Since Kirkwall,’ Zevran says. ‘Ah, a little after, more truthfully.’ He nudges his elbow into Fenris. ‘You had to follow your pirate wench.’

‘You had a pirate wench?’ Sera asks. ‘Skinny thing like you?’

‘Not mine,’ Fenris protests.

‘Not anyone’s,’ Varric laughs. ‘You’ve heard about Isabela.’

She has, Varric dwells long in the past and tells anyone who cares to listen whatever memory that trips over his tongue. ‘What, you and her?’ Sera sneers. ‘I’ve heard those stories, and she could do better.’

‘She could do you, you mean?’ Fenris returns. He’s grinning, wide and easy as you please, like he’s been grinning since he was born.

‘She would, too,’ Zevran adds.

‘Bel’s gotten more discerning in her age,’ Fenris says. Sera opens her mouth to express her loud indignation.

‘I’m a prize catch, I’ll have you know. Women clambering all over to get at me.’

‘Yeah?’ Bull juts out his chin. ‘Where are they?’

‘Left ‘em all behind to come look after you lot, didn’t I? Couldn’t leave you all stranded. I can’t believe a thing like you managed to get Captain Isabela.’

Fenris scoffs, while Hawke turns on Varric. ‘Which stories have you been telling them?’

‘Only true ones.’

‘He’s been practising plots for his next books,’ Cassandra says. She raises an eyebrow at Sera. ‘I wouldn’t believe everything he says.’

‘Look, it’s all true.’ Sera glares at him, a pinch of a wrinkle between her eyes and lips gone all pouty. ‘It’s mostly true. The parts that aren’t true are pretty obvious.’

‘She,’ Sera waves a hand at Hawke, ‘fought the Arishok. What’s obvious and what’s not? Am I meant to pick it out, like a card game?’

‘Isabela is very impressive,’ says Hawke. ‘And I fought the Arishok. I know impressive.’

Sera looks at Fenris. ‘Do you and her still, y’know.’ She makes a noise like a door hinge that needs oiling.

‘I’ve not seen her in a while,’ Fenris says. He doesn’t know what will happen next time he does, wouldn’t make a bet either way. Let it fall where it will, the future is for then and this is for now.

‘Sorry,’ Josephine interrupts, glancing between Fenris and Zevran. ‘I thought the two of you…’ Her voice drifts off.

‘We’re not,’ Fenris says.

‘Everyone thinks we are,’ Zevran adds. ‘To be fair, we were, but now we’re not.’ He spreads his hands wide on the table, cards all out, or bracing himself.

‘You’re in the same room, yeah?’ Sera says. ‘One bed and all.’ At Fenris’ frown she laughs and says, ‘I been all over this place. I know everything that’s in every room.’

‘Maker, I hope not,’ Dorian blurts, then looks faintly horrified at himself and puts a hand over his mouth. Everyone laughs bar Josephine and Leliana, who politely pretend not to, and Vivienne and Fenris, who actually don’t.

‘Fenris and Isabela went off together after Kirkwall,’ Hawke muses. ‘That was a little after we all went together. Then we split up.’ She frowns, not sure where the story goes from there. The frown does something dreadful to her face. Everyone looks better smiling, but she’s gone all sour from life that the frown makes her unpleasant to look at. With a stab of guilt Fenris wishes he’d never left her side. He hadn’t wanted to, life had just unfolded that way. Now they were together again, but he’s not naive enough to think it’s for very long. Just travellers bumping into each other along the road, sharing tales and wandering off in opposite directions.

He misses her with an ache that cuts his soul in half, that fuels his rage at Anders stronger than any ethics about mage freedom. Anders had no right to do that. He destroyed more than merely Kirkwall. He destroyed this, he destroyed them.

He turns to his drink, where the ice has all melted away, staring at the liquid without lifting it to his lips.

Zevran is still talking, regaling their tale in fits and starts that keep being interrupted. ‘See, Isabela and I, we’re friends from a long time back.’ Fenris has heard this story get told a dozen times and each retelling makes it somehow different. ‘I murdered a prince, and the prince just happened to be her husband.’ A curious twist to the original tale, so Fenris listens. ‘You’d think she’d not be very happy with that, but that is if you don’t know -’

‘He was beating her, yeah?’ Sera cuts in.

‘He was rich,’ Varric adds.

Zevran scowls. ‘How did you know?’

Shaking his head Fenris slouches back in his chair. Varric catches his eye to wink at him, and Fenris rolls his eyes in return.

‘If you’re going to be spoilsports I’ll just skip ahead,’ Zevran grouses. ‘We met again in Denerim, during the Blight.’

‘Oh, of course!’ Cullen says. ‘You were at the Circle with the Hero.’

‘Of Ferelden? It’s been a long while since I’ve been accused of that,’ Zevran says. His voice is light but the rest of him is tense, and Fenris puts his hand over his even though he knows it cuts up the declaration that they’re not a couple.

‘I was there,’ Cullen says.

‘I recall,’ Zevran says. ‘The Templar who wanted to kill all the mages just on the off chance one of them was possessed? Three mages standing in front of you and you wanted them all dead. Good way to show gratitude, hm?’ Cullen goes silent and slightly pale, and Zevran smiles with all his teeth. ‘Still, you’re here, so all’s well that ends well.’ It is not said kindly.

‘It was the best decision.’

‘Zevran,’ Fenris murmurs.

He subsides, and continues. ‘I sailed with Isabela and Fenris a while, but Fenris is a terrible sailor.’

‘I resent that,’ Fenris growls, though he nudges Zevran under the table with his foot, knowing, again, that really they’re a couple in every way except the actual proper ways.

‘Bad at the water, good at the piracy,’ Hawke teases.

Zevran finally gets to finish his little story, painted inelegantly with chopped-up sentences. ‘Now we ride the land killing slavers wherever we find them.’

‘You could work for the Inquisition,’ Cassandra says.

‘Already had that offer,’ Zevran says.

Cassandra turns a severe look on Hawke. ‘You don’t have the power to make that offer.’

‘Easy, Seeker,’ Varric says. ‘We’ve taken on worse than these two.’ No one pays much attention when Blackwall flinches, all busy with their own set of regrets. ‘Are you staying?’

Fenris looks at Zevran, Zevran looks at Fenris, and they shrug nearly in the same moment.

‘Maybe.’

‘For a while.’

‘If you’ll have us,’ Zevran adds. He shrugs, like it doesn’t matter. And it doesn’t, not really. The whole world around them, anywhere they want they can go, or stay.

Leliana speaks. ‘You should stay,’ she says. Cassandra gives her a dark look, but she merely raises an eyebrow in return. ‘Just for a while.’ She gives a knowing grin to Zevran. She understands him, knows that soon the nothingness of the fortress will lose the appeal it gets for being new and he’ll be hankering to be gone again. ‘Just until you get bored.’

Fenris raises an eyebrow and Zevran shrugs one shoulder. As if they have to consider it. ‘Certainly,’ Zevran says. ‘We’ll stay a while.’


End file.
